Racial Capitalism: From British Colonialism to the Settler Colonial Apartheid State

This article explores the development of capitalism in Palestine under British colonialism and the Zionist settler colonial project. It examines first, Israel's internal and external capitalist dynamism, including its treatment of its non-European citizens, namely indigenous Palestinians, and non-Ashkenazi (Arab) Jewish settlers. Second, it explores the state's interdependent relationship with Western, especially US imperialism. The article argues that the British colonial state was crucial in enabling the Zionist project to materialize, leading to weakening the socio-economic fabric of the Palestinians in their own lands and homeland, creating a favourable condition for the Zionist project to gradually penetrate the land of Palestine and dispossess its population. As a European (Jewish) settler colonial movement, Zionism, founded on racism and racialization, aimed at establishing a new Jewish enclave separate and independent from the indigenous Palestinians. This separateness made it resemble apartheid South Africa, yet the historical specificity of Palestine, where the Zionist settlers did not just alienate, exclude and when needed, use and exploit the Palestinians, but also expelled the indigenous Palestinians and claim Palestine as a ‘pure’ Jewish state.